In his letter to President Kennedy in March 1961, special advisor Arthur M. Schlesinger had tried to warn the president that illegal, ill-advised, and amateurish plans to undermine the Cuban leader could only backfire, galvanizing support for Castro in Latin America and throughout the world while eroding the young president's moral authority. But the embarrassment of the Bay of Pigs made the president and his administration more determined than ever. July 26, 1961, marked the eighth anniversary of Fidel Castro's attack on the Moncada Barracks. To coincide with that anniversary, the CIA planned an operation code-named Patty (sometimes Patty Candela), which included the double assassination of Fidel and Raúl Castro, along with
a staged attack on the Guantánamo naval base aimed to provoke a full-scale U.S. response.
The navy's injunction against using the naval base to train a covert Cuban exile force or to launch an unprovoked assault on Cuba did not extend to cultivating intelligence contacts in Oriente province or even sheltering Cuban exiles on the base. Besides the assassination of the two Castros, Operation Patty called for the firing of four mortar shells toward the U.S. base from Cuban territory, with one more mortar fired at a Cuban military post near the base,
as if
originating from the U.S. base. The plan also included the arming by the naval base of local Cubans friendly to the United States, who, again disguised as government forces, would help precipitate the American counterattack. Then, a real war having been triggered, the local Cubans could join the liberators in “restoring” democratic rule to Cuba. Like so many other bungled U.S. operations against the Castro government, the Cubans saw this coming. The leaders of the program were arrested in possession of two 57-millimeter cannons, four bazookas, twenty-three Garand rifles, and an assortment of grenades and ammunition. To this seized cache was later added thirty-five Springfield rifles, a 60-millimeter mortar, one .30-caliber machine gun, twelve M-3 submachine guns, two M-1 carbines, and still more ammunition and grenades, all apparently a product of naval base largesse.
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It was not long after this that Cuba filed a formal complaint against the Guantánamo naval base at the United Nations, accusing the United States of using the base as a launchpad for attacks in Cuba. “I shall not descend to reply,” said Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in response, “to the argument that the United States base at Guantánamo Bay, which exists by virtue of a valid treaty between the two countries and which has been there for 60 years, is directed against Cuba and ⦠the Western Hemisphere and that it is harboring mercenaries for an attack.” Such “charges are not only false but absurd. The whole history of this century is eloquent testimony that this installation has been maintained for the defense of the hemisphere and not for attack on the hemisphere.” Looking back years later on his time in charge of Guantánamo and the Atlantic Fleet, Admiral Dennison observed that Guantánamo's role in the region was as “a benevolent presence, surely.
Nobody in his right mind would think we were down there for purposes of conquering somebody or taking over countries.”
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In the summer of 1961, Kennedy authorized Operation Mongoose, a multifaceted program to remove the Castros from power. This time Guantánamo featured prominently in the planning of espionage designed to inspire yet another retaliatory strike by Cuban forces on the base, which would in turn justify a full-scale American response.
In late 1961, President Kennedy met at the White House with his brother, the attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and General Edward Lansdale, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The purpose of the meeting was to take stock of the Cuban situation. By all appearances, the situation was becoming more dire by the day, as Castro's grip on power was tightening and as the United States seemed to be at a loss to do anything about it. From that meeting emerged the conviction that deposing Castro would be the “top priority in the United States Government” in the new year. Just the day before, President Kennedy had told his brother that “the final chapter on Cuba has not been written.” Where Castro was concerned, “all else is secondaryâno time, money, effort, or manpower is to be spared.”
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By early the next year, the attorney general was passing out assignments for Operation Mongoose.
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In February, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Lansdale reviewed plans designed to “lure or provoke Castro, or an uncontrollable subordinate, into an overt hostile reaction against the United States; a reaction which would in turn create the justification for the US to not only retaliate but destroy Castro with speed, force and determination.” One operation, code-named Bingo, called for the U.S. military to use so-called snakes, or U.S. and exiled Cuban forces planted “outside the confines of the Guantánamo Base,” to “simulate an actual fire-fight,” which would give the appearance that the base was under attack. This simulated attack would then inspire a true counterattack, during which the U.S. base “could disgorge military force in sufficient number to sustain itself until other forces, which had been previously alerted, could
attack in other areas.” Properly carried out, “the above could overthrow the Cuban Government in a matter of hours.”
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It is hard to know how literally this and other optimistic plans for Castro's overthrow were greeted by top Kennedy administration officials. Their willingness to sign off on the Bay of Pigs fiasco suggests a credulous audience. Operation Bingo was just one in a long list of proposed maneuvers designed to bring down Castro that included, among other dubious programs, Operation Good Times, which aimed to sow doubts about Castro's populism by raining down on the Cuban countryside doctored photographs depicting “an obese Castro with two beauties in any situation desired, ostensibly within a room in the Castro residence, lavishly furnished, and a table brimming over with the most delectable Cuban food with an underlying caption (appropriately Cuban) such as âMy ration is different.'” A surefire spark to counterrevolution.
Operation Bingo was meant to convince the Cuban government that a U.S. attack was imminent, in part by evacuating “selected civilians, including dependents,” from Guantánamo and replacing them with a battalion of marines.
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This was as nothing compared to what the Joint Chiefs of Staff had in mind for Guantánamo by the middle of March. A list of “pretexts to justify US military intervention in Cuba” included an elaborate register of potential actions undertaken at or near the naval base. “A series of well coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around Guantánamo to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces,” chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lemnitzer informed Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Among ideas intended to create the appearance of a “credible [Cuban] attack” on the naval base, Lemnitzer noted the following: “Land friendly Cuban in uniform âover-the-fence' to stage attack on base”; “capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base”; “start riots near the base main gate (friendly Cubans).” Not all the ideas were so benign: “Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires”; “burn aircraft on air base (sabotage)”; “lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to installations”; “capture assault teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of Guantánamo City”; “capture militia group which storms the base”; “sabotage ship in harbor;
large firesânaphthalene”; “sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims (may be in lieu of (10)).”
That wasn't all. “A âRemember the Maine' incident could be arranged,” Lemnitzer informed his boss, adding intriguing fuel to undying conspiracy theorizing: “a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantánamo Bay and blame Cuba. b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of Cuban attack from air or sea, or both.” When the Cuban military investigated the presence of hostile Cuban aircraft or naval vessels in the area, it would lend credence to U.S. accusations. And of course “the US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to âevacuate' remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.”
This was an administration willing to play hardball; the sluices having been opened, the ideas kept coming: “We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized.” Auto-terrorism? “Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.” And on and on it went: simulated hijacking of a U.S. plane; simulated shooting down over Cuba of a U.S. airliner filled with college students on vacation. What alternative was there, given the fact that U.S. intelligence had determined that “a credible internal revolt is impossible of attainment during the next 9â10 months?” Clearly, it was up to the United States “to develop a Cuban âprovocation' as justification for positive US military action.”
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By August 1962 the U.S. State Department and the CIA contemplated for the first time using Guantánamo to mount covert operations into Cuba. Up to this point the Defense Department had shied away from such requests due to the fact of Guantánamo's exposure to Cuban surveillance and to naval officials' reluctance to compromise the navy's legal standing there. In mid-month, Lemnitzer and CIA director John McCone expressed deep reservations about implicating
Guantánamo; a week later, Secretary of State Dean Rusk raised the subject of using Guantánamo for covert operations, with vigorous opposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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As best is known, this is the closest Guantánamo came to being the launchpad of U.S. military activity in Cuba between January 1, 1959, when Castro rose to power, and November 1, 1962, the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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The Cuban Missile Crisis began in midsummer 1962, when U.S. intelligence officials began to notice large shipments of Soviet military cargo being unloaded in Cuba. Accompanying the armaments were literally thousands of passengers presumed to be Soviet-bloc military personnel, along with heavy construction and communications equipment. Before long, new roads were being laid in isolated areas and new military installations thrown up. “What the construction activity involves is not yet known,” an intelligence memorandum confessed in late August. But activity in the vicinity of Matanzas, just west of Havana, suggested, among other possibilities, “the initial phases of construction of a SAM[surface-to-air missile]-equipped air defense system.”
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U.S. uncertainty about what exactly was going on in Cuba was exacerbated by a monthlong pause in CIA-operated U-2 surveillance flights due to several controversial incidents in Asia. When aerial surveillance of Cuba resumed in mid-October, it revealed a host of SAM sites, to be sure, but also the installation of medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads anywhere in the continental United States.
The history of the Cuban Missile Crisis is well known.
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Less known is the fact that the Soviets directed nuclear missiles not only at the continental United States but also at Guantánamo itself. The United States would not comprehend the existential threat facing the base until fifty years later, when it was revealed by the journalist Michael Dobbs. Guantánamo officials reported unusual movements throughout eastern Cuba and in the vicinity of the bay as early as August 24. “Persistent reports from numerous sources indicates [
sic
] extensive military construction is in progress in restricted area” northwest of the naval base, the navy warned the State Department. One thousand or so Russian and Czech military personnel were at work on a
missile site amid great security and secrecy. The navy also described Chinese and Soviet nationals off-loading dozens of rockets in nearby Cuban ports and transporting them to selected towns ringing Guantánamo Bay.
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Again, U.S. intelligence officials were not sure how to read this. They never imagined that conventional, much less nuclear, missiles would be pointed at the naval base. They consistently argued that the biggest threat to the base came not from Russian arms just arrived in Cuba but from Castro himself. Indeed, they had expected the Soviets to act as a restraint on Castro's “designs on Guantánamo.”
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On September 7, CIA director McCone learned from a Cuban source that the Communists were making preparations for the “âcomplete destruction' of the Guantánamo Base in the event of [a U.S.] attack on Cuba.” But the report made no mention that such an attack would be carried out by nuclear weapons.
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Meanwhile, reports of a military buildup throughout Cuba in general, and more specifically in the region around the naval base, continued to flow from the base commander to Washington throughout September.
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News that the Soviets were installing nuclear warheads in Cuba reached the president on October 16. Beginning with a White House meeting that evening and continuing over the course of the next week, top national security officials contemplated a range of responses, from a full-scale military invasion of Cubaâfavored by the Joint Chiefs of Staffâto targeted bombardment of missile and military sites, to a naval quarantine of the Cuban coast. Any form of U.S. military attack was at a minimum sure to provoke a strike at the naval base, everybody agreed, prompting General Maxwell Taylor, newly appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to order the evacuation of dependents on October 22. Meanwhile, the thought of using the base to bait Castro into war persisted. “One other thing is whether, uh, we should also think of, uh, uh, whether there is some other way we can get involved in through, uh, Guantánamo Bay, or something,” Attorney General Robert Kennedy stammered at the first meeting of national security officials on October 16, “or whether there's some ship that, you know, sink the Maine again or something.”
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